MWC 2013: Hands-on with the Huawei Ascend P2

With industry leaders like Samsung and HTC keeping a low profile at Mobile World Congress this year, smaller manufacturers like Huawei have a chance to shine. Huawei seized this opportunity and kicked off MWC with its newest flagship phone, the Ascend P2.

The P2 is a strong mid-range offering with a 4.7-inch display, a 1.5GHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM. The 720P display offers an almost edge-to-edge design (Infinity Edge Display) and is crafted of Gorilla Glass 2. It’s touted as the world’s fastest smartphone because it rocks a LTE Cat4 chip, which provides mobile broadband speeds of up to 150 Mbps.

Th design of the P2 is unmistakably Huawei with the same sleek profile and glossy design as its predecessor, the Ascend P1. It’s thin at 8mm, but not the thinnest phone on the market and feels light when you pick it up. It has a longer, thinner profile than Huawei’s other flagship device, the Ascend Mate.

The right side of the P2 features a volume switch and a physical camera button, while the left is home to a headphone jack, a micro-USB charging port and a power button. Buttons are expectedly plasticy-feeling. On the back of the device is a 13-megapixel camera and on the front is a 1.2-megapixel shooter.

Inside the device is a 2,420mA battery and the promise of 20 percent less power consumption thanks to Huawei’s power-saving technology. It’ll ship with 16GB of onboard storage. The P2 is powered by Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with Huawei’s Emotion UI.

The Ascend P2 will be available starting in Q2 2013. It’ll debut in Europe where it will cost €399 ($525 USD, £345).